


I've Heard That Everything Breaks

by saferbet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 03:52:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5990803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saferbet/pseuds/saferbet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel hated the fragility of human life. The fleeting birthing, screaming, dying of it. Violence and chaos and the uniquely combined smell of whiskey, and sweat and gun oil that somehow felt more like a home to him than Heaven ever could - Like sanctuary and forgiveness and warmth. Like family and salvation and a tiny, nebulous something that just kept catching in his chest, making it hard for him to breathe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I've Heard That Everything Breaks

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, this is the first piece of fan fiction I've written so I apologise if it's not great. I'd love it if you could take some time to give me some feedback or criticism but if not thanks for taking the time to read this anyway. I hope you like it.

The steady tick, tick, ticking of the wall clock was caustic and violent. The mechanism far too loud in the heavy silence that had fallen unfamiliarly in the familiar kitchen. This should have been something he was okay with. It was only the passing of time. The inception of life and destruction of universes, the exploding of stars, the screaming of a human infant. Birth, death, birth, an insistent, unending cycle. Time. The ticking of a clock.

It wasn’t okay.

Dean was still horribly hurt; a litany of broken: three cracked ribs, a sprained left wrist, burst lower lip, too many breaks in his too delicate skin to catalogue. Castiel hated it. More than anything he hated how he couldn’t fix it, couldn’t make it go away. He hated the fragility of human life. The fleeting birthing, screaming, dying of it. Violence and chaos and the uniquely combined smell of whiskey, and sweat and gun oil that somehow felt more like a home to him than Heaven ever could - Like sanctuary and forgiveness and warmth. Like family and salvation and a tiny, nebulous something that just kept catching in his chest, making it hard for him to breathe.

 The desolate isolation from his brothers and sisters, the crushing frustration of complete impotency, the aching monotony of daily human functions: dressing and undressing, brushing his teeth, eating, sleeping, the need to breathe in and out again and again and Dean laughing at him, _How can you just forget to breathe, Cas?_ Dean buying him food in greasy diners and bringing a concerned sandwich to his room in the bunker when he didn’t recall whether he ate or not that day. All of this he could have learned to accept, learned to live with maybe, but not this, he doesn’t know what to do with this.  This completely illogical, irrational - immutable all the same - feeling like a flying, like falling, like sublime redemption, like Grace, like deliverance, like a knife twisted in his gut, like bleeding out. This was the reason he had Fallen. This was it. It was nestled away, a tender secret stumbled upon in a cocky smirk and the welcoming smell of the aged leather upholstery in the _Impala_. And this was it. He had never wanted to kiss someone before. Why would he? He knew Time. He had witnessed the inception of life and the destruction of universes, the exploding of stars, the screaming of a human infant. He was infinite, he was powerful, he was loyal only to his Heavenly Father and fellow angels and he had no need of desire for anything but the pleasing of God and the completion of His work. He had wanted to kiss Dean Winchester more in that moment than he thought he had ever wanted anything in the millennia of his existence.

Sam was conspicuously absent. Castiel knew them both well enough by now, knew them like he knew his own vessel, like he knew Time, to know that this was intentional. That he was giving them space to talk. Dean didn’t talk though. Dean was completely silent and uncharacteristically, unnervingly still. It made Castiel hurt in a way he knew wasn’t a physical ailment but caused pain and distress nevertheless, a sharp ache in his chest and a noxious clenching in his stomach. Dean was a man of action, a spring-loaded barrel, tyres on asphalt. Dean wasn’t still. Dean wasn’t silent.

That had been what had scared him so terribly into confession. Dean was never supposed to be so still. Dean was cocky smiles and the smell of home. Dean wasn’t supposed to ever be so crumpled and broken in his brother’s arms, the smell of blood cloying in the back of Castiel’s throat. Clogging and choking and making him sick with guilt and fear and Dean couldn’t die. Dean please couldn’t die because Castiel couldn’t save him now. He was useless. Powerless. Pointless. And he really really couldn’t watch him die. He loved him. There was nothing without Dean. Everything he had given up, everything he had lost – brothers and sisters and a purpose and Grace and Time and eternity – none if it meant anything in the face of the wonderful, brilliance of Dean Winchister. He had Fallen. He had lost more than he could ever imagine and yet he still couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Salvation was not in God but in the sound of a single human man’s laughter. The impossible beauty of a galaxy held in the light of his eyes. He couldn’t lose Dean. He couldn’t. He loved him.

He hadn’t realised he was crying. He hadn’t realised he was crying and babbling nonsense about whiskey and gun oil and home, about Salvation and God and Dean Winchester’s smile and a litany of admissions over and over and noises that might have been pleas and might have been prayers but were all the same anyway- were all just _Dean_ \- not until Sam was pulling him into his chest. Holding him too tightly as Castiel struggled and he tried to tell him over and over that it was okay. It was okay, Dean was just knocked out, he was gonna be fine, it’s fine Cas.

Dean took a deep breath in the eternity of Time between one second and the next before he finally, finally looked at Castiel. “I didn’t know you felt that way.” He admitted slowly, his voice deep and rough and so filled with sadness that Castiel thought it might break his heart. Castiel didn’t know what to say to that so he didn’t say anything at all.

“How long?” Dean asked after the silence between them stretched on for too many minutes, punctuated only by the steady tick, tick, ticking, the destruction of universes, the exploding of stars.

“A while.” Castiel told him because there was no point in trying to hide it, no point denying it. He had confessed and he had to face the consequences of that. Dean Winchester winced and then tried to pretend that he hadn’t. The smile he offered Castiel was so obviously forced that he wondered how anyone could ever believe the lies that he told so easily. Dean was an open book to anyone who knew the language that was written into the play of his muscles, the tiny creases around his eyes and mouth, the tell-tale instinctive reactions he tried to mask but couldn’t. Dean had winced.

“Do you want me to leave?” Castiel asked because that was the obvious solution. He had made Dean wince away from him. He had betrayed his friend’s trust for years harbouring all of these messy, illogical feelings for him that he could never hope to be requited.

Dean stood up so fast and suddenly that the chair he had been sitting in clattered deafeningly against the tiled floor. Dean flinched and sucked in a sharp breath at the pain to his already battered body this action must have incurred and then looked at the chair surprised, like he hadn’t known he was going to do that. A man of action. He stepped towards Castiel with a resolve that Castiel had always respected about him, he had made a decision, now he would act on it. It was so familiar it should have felt comfortable. Instead it made him feel sick.

“Cas, no.” Dean told him gently, stepping into his space and pulling him in for a hug that too felt forced, awkward, somehow out of step, discordant in a way that wasn’t them. “Of course I don’t want you to leave. This is your home, you have to know that.” He had left his hand gripping on Castiel’s shoulder after he had pulled away from the hug and Castiel tried desperately not to lean into the touch, into the warmth and comfort and home that was Dean Winchester. Dean must have finally learned to read the language of Castiel's secrets that he told in the unconscious play of Jimmy’s muscles because something that he saw on Castiel's face made him make an involuntary pained sound and bring his other hand up to Castiel’s cheek, settling him with his green eyed intensity as he spoke again. “Cas, I’m sorry man. You know I do love you. You’re family Cas. I love you like I love Sammy.” He took a deep breath. “I just can’t,” His murmured voice cracked slightly and he looked away and swallowed before turning his gaze back to Castiel. “Fuck. I kinda wish I did love you in that way. I can’t stand you being hurt because of me.”

Castiel recognised the utter redundancy of pointing out that he felt exactly the same in reverse. He knew Dean’s tendency to blame himself, to carry more guilt than any man should ever have to endure, and the guilt he felt for making Dean regret not being able to love him would only make Dean feel more guilty about it in return in a pointless and unending spiral. Instead he did the only thing he could. He lied. “It’s okay, Dean.” He was a much better liar anyway and this one didn’t even make him feel too bad because it meant that Dean squeezed his shoulder and offered him a smile, smaller and more fragile than before but at least this time genuine, this time honest.

Dean let him go and turned to the fridge, likely to get a beer. Dean’s habits and mannerisms were practically written into the fabric of Castiel’s existence. He knew them better than he knew his own name. “You know nothing has to change between us, right?” He added, his tone friendly as he popped the lid from the bottle against the edge of the counter.

Cas shrugged, a human habit he’d learned from them. He reflected upon the innumerable ways he’d been irrevocably changed from that first day in an old barn in an unremarkable place somewhere the humans had decided to call America. He still couldn’t bring himself to regret it.

“Right.” He agreed. The clock continued on in its ticking.

 

 

 

 


End file.
